I have often wondered why the English language, unlike so many other languages, no longer has a proper distinction between second person singular and second person plural. No matter how many people an individual is speaking to, one or many, they are all addressed as you. Because of this lacking, when one reads the parsha in English, one might easily miss subtle nuances in the text, such as that which happens in Shemos 22:22-23: “If you (s) do mistreat them [the stranger, the orphan, or the widow, all mentioned in 22:20-21], I will heed their outcry as soon as they cry out to Me, and My anger shall blaze forth and I will put you (pl) to the sword, and your (pl) wives will become widows and your (pl) children orphans.”
There is something fascinating about finding these grammatical flags within the verses of the Torah. In a text in which we believe that every word has meaning and significance, even the basic grammatical participals, the transition from addressing you to you all has a purpose.
The Torah’s injunctions not to mistreat the stranger, the orphan, or the widow is an idea that gets repeated over and over throughout the Torah. These three specifications lay the foundation for building a community that cares. These three specifications are the people most easily lost, taken advantage of, or disdained in the shuffle of society and day-to-day living because most often they have no one specifically looking out for them.
One would not think that it would be necessary to codify kindness to people, especially to those in more needy situations. But God made man and God made Torah and God most certainly understands that there is, in many of us, a very natural tendency to make hierarchies. We take care of those closest to ourselves first, and then those with whom we are familiar, and then those who are other. It takes more conscious effort to be open to people in other circumstances or to empathize beyond one’s personal interest with those in exceptional circumstances.
One interesting aspect of parshas Mishpatim is that in the basic interpersonal laws that it lays down, there is a recognition of some of humankind’s natural, negative character traits. Take hatred for example. While sinas chinam, baseless hatred, is forbidden, the Torah accepts the fact that two people might become enemies. Thus it is written in the Torah: “When you see the donkey of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless raise it with him” (23:4).
Hatred, selfishness, perversions, and violence are all possibilities of inclinations within the human condition, and parshas Mishpatim touches on many of what we might think of as uncrossable lines. It also tells us, as one can interpret from verse 23:4 (helping your enemy), that Hashem knows and expects us to be able to overcome those inclinations. You don’t like someone because they did something to you, because they said something, or because they have an opposing philosophy to life, the Torah does not say that one has to like them. But it does tell us that you have to stop and help them raise up the animal, you do have to still see that they are a person.
In Shemos 22:22-23, Hashem mandates the protection of the stranger, the widow and the orphan, because while selfishness may natural, it is not a good trait. But it is also a character trait that can be mitigated by the society around us. If those around us are generous, we have a tendency to give more of ourselves. If those around us are emotionally hard or lacking in compassion, we tend to be the same. And this, perhaps, is a lesson that can be learned from Verse 22:22-23’s shift from second person singular to second person plural. One person may be performing the act of mistreating the widow or taking advantage of an orphan or wronging a stranger, but when this happens there is an onus upon the whole community for not having come together to protect them, to look out for them. Kindness, as it is often said, begins at home; but home is also where we learn the traits of kindness that we must take into the greater world.
No comments:
Post a Comment